


Creative Solutions to Problems Concerning Mirrors

by LittlestMedic



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Comedy, Lets degrade Viren's dignity with slapstick! :D, Soren is mentioned too, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 20:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19411144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlestMedic/pseuds/LittlestMedic
Summary: The mirror ended up in the dungeon for the purposes of getting Runaan to help, and then it never really left. Maybe this is because Viren felt it was better in the dungeon.Maybe it's because he couldn't physically get it out.





	Creative Solutions to Problems Concerning Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Huge love to my supporter and best friend, @DJNessling on Twitter, who writes The Midnight Compass, which you may know of. She's the one who brought me into TDP hell, and she's the one who encouraged this terrible fic.

When he first considered the riddle of the mirror, he did not factor in transport.

This was, in hindsight, a significant error. After all, the mirror had been in his office for some time, and was cumbersome enough that taking it down to the dungeon had been difficult enough _with_ Soren’s help.

Granted, Soren did in fact make it harder at some points—

“Now, pull it Soren.”

“What, my way?”

“What? Of course from your way. We’re trying to get it down the hallway.”

“Oh, right, yeah.”

\--and Viren had, of course, discovered the scuff along the side from where Soren had dragged it against the priceless Armour of the Fifth King. He couldn’t bring himself to believe his sons excuse; “I swear, that armour has never been there before, Dad.”, especially when the Armour of the Fifth King was, in fact, from the Fifth King, and was an ancient artefact, and had been in the castle, in the same spot, for longer than Viren had been _alive_.

It turned out, too, that getting it down the spiral staircase had been easier than expected, although when your son is mostly brawn, that should not come as a surprise.  
Ancient wood was _surprisingly_ springy.

Viren considered himself a smart man. Far smarter than the average man. Far smarter than the elf he’d thought to torment into telling him the secrets of the mirror. Far smarter than Amaya’s little commander, kept up and out of the way outside the elf’s cell.  
Gren hadn’t even said anything when the mirror got pushed into the elf’s cell, although when all was said and done with the Moonshadow, and the mirror proved as perplexing as before, _then_ he had something to say.

“Hey, that’s a nice mirror. Shame it doesn’t have wheels though.”

Maybe sending Soren and Claudia away before retiring the mirror back to its rightful place in his office had been a mistake. No—Viren rarely made missteps like that, he consoled himself, and this was just a minor inconvenience. He contemplated the challenge of getting the mirror back _up_ the spiral staircase carefully.  
He was a strong man still, he decided, knowing in the back of his mind that it was a lie, because he had to walk with a staff that wasn’t entirely just for magical purposes. He kept him upright sometimes too. When he’d been young—younger, he scolded himself, because you were as young as you felt, and Viren still felt young. At least he did most days. Claudia’s morning potion had always helped, and of course that had gone away when she did.

Mind over matter, he told himself, as he carefully manoeuvred the mirror onto its back, propped his staff up against the wall, and bent to pick the mirror up by its upper edge. It was heavier than he remembered, mostly because the heavy lifting before had been done by the child that had inherited brawn, rather than brains.

“Gee, that looks heavy.”

Viren didn’t give Gren an answer. Gods, it was heavy. He carefully stepped onto the first step, and dragged the mirror with him, its heavy cloth slipping under his fingers as it dragged on the uneven stone floor.  
Alright. One step. He could try the second step.

Viren gave a cautious look behind him, and stepped up, dragging the mirror closer to the stairs. He hadn’t even brought it up onto the stairs yet, and already he could feel the humiliation of being a mage doing heavy lifting.  
Lift from the knees, or was it the back? No, one of them was _don’t_ lift from there. What was it that Harrow had used to scold him about whenever they tried to out-man each other? God, it was so long ago—He moved onto the third step, dragging the mirror with him, only to have it hit the bottom step with a resolute _thud_.

Okay, he told himself. The first step. Always the hardest.

He heaved, and the wood made an ominous creaking sound as it thudded onto the first step.

“Oooh, that didn’t sound good. Hey, is that an antique? Should you be pulling it like that?”

Again, Viren ignored Gren, pulling himself and the mirror up onto the next step. Ah, two steps. Two. He was making excellent progress. At this rate he’d be done sometime before next week.  
He pulled it up another step, carefully twisting the mirror as he approached a corner. It teetered on one leg ominously, and he rearranged his grip on the cloth that covered it.

“Hey, why didn’t you just take the cloth off? I feel like that would have made it easier.”

“Will you be quiet? I am trying to concentrate.”

“Oh, right. Of course. Sorry, I’ll go back to being a prisoner silently.”

Viren narrowed his eyes, and attempted another step. The mirror clunked, and Viren looked down to see that at some point, his robe and the cloth had become tangled with the intricate twists of the decoration on the mirror. He shifted slightly, desperately trying to free himself, shimmying his hips with the look of an exotic dancer as he tried to encourage the heavy cloth away.

His foot slipped from the step, and he fell onto his behind, with the mirror on top of him, bumping down the small number of steps he had come. Landing with the mirror in his lap, and a bruised tail bone, he sighed out his frustration, gazing in irritation at the barely contained hysteria on Gren’s face.

Viren decided then he would need a smarter approach.

* * *

A smarter approach, he decided, was wheels. He carefully arranged the pieces for his elaborate base for the mirror out in what had been the elf’s cell, but now stood as the mirrors home. Many would not have suspected it, but the High Mage Viren was an accomplished craftsman—because no one else’s children had been so demanding in their requirements for toys, of course. Claudia had _needed_ a dragon toy that really flew, and he wouldn’t be such a terrible father that he would have denied his little girl the toy of her dreams.

He assembled them slowly and precisely, until the very act of pushing the mirror from the cell was as easy as wheeling it out in front of Gren.

“Oh, hey, wheels! You took my advice. Maybe seeing as I helped you could let me out?”

Viren ignored him, as was normal by then. He pushed the mirror to the staircase, stepping in front of it and trying to drag it up the steps. The wheels hit the rough-hewn step, and Viren realised with a sinking feels that, by making an elaborate base, he seemed to have made it more difficult.  
Maybe pushing it would be easier. He stepped round the other side, planting his hands solidly on the back of the mirror, willing it up the steps.

It didn’t budge, although it did slide _slightly_ off the base, and tilted teasingly away from him.

With a barely contained shriek of fury, Viren took the staff to the elaborate wheeled contraption he’d designed, breaking it apart with not so much finesse as vengeful rage.  
The mirror stayed, removed from its base with more care than Viren wanted to admit, even if at this point he felt like, having survived Soren, it was probably indestructible.

Panting with exertion, Viren gave pushing the mirror up the stairs one last go, succeeding in hitting himself between the legs with the tilting edge of the mirror as he pushed the top half. He crumpled against the wall, wheezing, holding himself up with his staff as he desperately tried to master the pain that washed over him in waves.

He hadn’t been hit like that since Soren was a child and decided that between the legs was a viable sword fighting move against his father. It had only been a wooden sword, for Soren was much easier pleased than Claudia as a child, but it had still hurt an ungodly amount.

“You sure you don’t need a hand? I’m good at helping people. Amaya keeps me around because I’m good at _something_.”

“Be… Quiet…” Viren gasped out, finally managing to stand up straight. He took a few deep breaths, and returned the mirror to its cell. He needed a bath, and some time to think of another plan. And also, maybe an icepack.

* * *

This, he decided, this would be the master plan. The rope was tied around column at the top, the pulleys were in place, and all Viren needed to do was guide the mirror up the stairs alongside the pulley system. The secure rope at the top would do the pulling, and the secure rope at the bottom would see them safely away. The top rope extended out, beyond the painting, beyond his office, into the hallway, tied securely around the closest column he could find. Which, of course, was about 2 miles of rope away, if you factored in all the twisting corridors and double knots.

It was, if Viren could say so himself, marvellous. He’d really outdone himself this time. It was obvious to see where Claudia got her brilliance from sometimes.  
He carefully tied the mirror to the guide rope, affixing it to the pulley system. It was genius, it really was, and it was worth it to have the smith make up these specific pulleys just for this purpose.

Viren tested the rope, Gren watching on curiously. Viren paid him no mind. The unfortunate incident with the tilt of the mirror a few days ago had been completely forgotten, or at least Commander Gren wouldn’t be talking about it whilst he still valued his life.

Cautiously, Viren began to walk the mirror up the stairs, like he was leading a person, rather than an inanimate, mysterious object. It reminded him of asking his ex-wife to dance with him, back when they’d been on happier terms and not shouting at each other. He’d been an excellent dancer. He still was, he supposed, because you never really forgot these things and he, least of all, would never forget a skill.

He just never really got a time to use it. These were troubling times, after all, and the High Mage didn’t have time for dancing. Or a partner, really, but that was inconsequential.

As Viren walked the mirror up the stairs, he was quite unaware of what was happening _up_ the stairs—which was to say, he was quite unaware of the fact that a guard (A Lieutenant Thaddeus Flynn, Taddy to his friends, who was in his first week of guarding the castle and didn’t want to get it wrong) had in fact happened across the rope, strung across several different hallways and twitching slightly.

He didn’t know where it led, but Thaddeus was almost 100% convinced of two things.

  1. That it couldn’t be anything good.
  2. That he would be a hero and Marguerite would finally date him if he helped bring down whatever villainy this mysterious twitching rope was connected with.



Far down the staircase, Viren felt several things happen at once. Firstly, he heard “Aha! Take heed, vile fiend!” echo down the corridor. Secondly, he felt the rope go taut for just the briefest of moments, and then it loosened suddenly, and fell to the ground.

Thirdly, the entire weight of the mirror suddenly fell into his arms, and much like a man unprepared to lift his dance partner into the air, Viren found himself flailing in open space with something valuable in his arms.  
And then falling. Quite rapidly. Sliding down the stairs atop the mirrors shiny face, as it thudded joyfully down the stairs with reckless abandon.  
The High Mage let out a shout of alarm (and perhaps a swear or two…) that echoed up and down the staircase. For a moment, as they (Viren and his mirror) hurtled down the two turns of the staircase that Viren had managed to climb, the High Mage thought he might die. What a terrible way to die, he thought, and how humiliating.

He did not die. He landed in a heap with several miles of rope coiling around him (Had there been that much before…?) and the mirror beneath his fine shoes. Under the shocked look of Gren, he carefully dragged the mirror back to its cell, gingerly lifting the miraculously intact cover to check the damage.

Viren had expected the glass to be shattered, the fine details of the runes scraped and obscured—but there was nothing.

Not even a scratch, unless you counted the soft scuff when Soren had scraped it against an irreplaceable antique. Viren resolved to maybe _not_ tell his son, whom he had chastised greatly for the scuff, that he himself had in fact just ridden this mysterious, unique mirror down two twists of a spiral staircase with greater vigour than a rider taming a wild horse.

This afternoon would certainly keep him awake at night, Viren realised, as he replaced the mirrors cloth, picked up his staff, and walked towards the staircase to have another think about the Great Problem of the Stairs.

At the top of the steps, frozen in fear at having heard, distantly, the _very_ recognisable shout of the High Mage Viren when the rope suddenly disappeared off into the direction of the slightly open door of his office, Thaddeus decided it was probably time someone checked whether all the curtains were in the right place in the library. Yes. Someone needed to check those curtains, and it was going to be him, because the villain he had quashed was quite possibly Viren, and Marguerite wouldn’t find that heroic at all. Actually, now that he thought on it as he powerwalked away from the corridor and the rope he had cut, Thaddeus decided that maybe he’d just pick some flowers for Margie instead, and not regale her with how heroic he was.

* * *

This problem required a creative solution. Viren could see that now. That was fine—he prided himself on creative solutions, and always had. There was no shame in giving up on brawn and using the ace up your sleeve. He was High Mage for a reason, and it was silly he had wasted so much time not using the ace up his sleeve and instead taking the muscular route.

The Soren special, as he liked to put it—because if there was one thing his son did well, it was using muscles to break a problem. Make no mistake, he was proud of his son; he just lacked some creativity when it came to problem solving.

Viren regarded the mirror like you would an errant fly that had been getting away from your attempts to quash it for far too long. It was just taunting him now; not just with its inescapable mystery, but with the fact that he couldn’t even move it properly either.  
And he _wasn’t_ about to ask for help. If Soren and Claudia had been there, maybe he would have asked them, but they weren’t, and he was a grown man who did _not_ need his children to help him carry some furniture.

And there was also the fact he had Commander Gren chained to a wall, and if anyone else were to see that there’d probably be some questions asked.

A levitation spell, he decided. That would do the trick. And it was so simple—the wings of a butterfly, an actual live butterfly, some ground up bird bones… All of these things he _had_. Simple components for a simple spell…  
He ground them altogether, sprinkling the resultant powder liberally over the mirror as he left it at the bottom of the steps. Crushing the butterfly in his hand, he smeared it over the powder, and willed the mirror to float with a few words of power.

Eyes glowing, he walked it out to the base of the staircase, and looked up at the challenge ahead. Purple light ebbed from everywhere, and he smiled indulgently, deeply, like the cat who got the cream, and then cast dark magic on the cream to make it tastier. As he approached the steps, concentrating on maintaining the power of the spell, he heard something that sounded suspiciously like a polite cough.

Commander Gren. Of course. Viren ignored him, urging the mirror forward and up the stairs. It moved smoothly, unimpeded by gravity or walls or priceless artefacts.

“Hey, bad time, I can see that, but, uh, Viren? Oh, shoot, uh, Lord Viren, I guess… You wouldn’t happen to have any food with you? I’m kinda hungry.”

Ignore it, Viren told himself. Ignore it! The boy was a fool. How Amaya put up with him was impossible… He could feel his concentration slipping, and steeled himself against it, walking behind the mirror.

“Oh. No, that’s fine. Hey, before you go, I just gotta say, I’m really impressed by the evil lair you’ve put together. Real, um, secretive. And spooky. You know I saw _five_ different types of venomous spider today? Five! And also, just quickly…”

Oh god, did he never shut up? Although the spider thing was worrying, Viren had to admit. Spiders were hardly an unexpected thing in a dark, cave-bound study, but _venomous_ spiders…?  
No, keep your focus, he reminded himself. It’s just a matter of walking the mirror back up the steps to his office. Just keep concentrating…

“…I really was curious about what kinda horn that is over there. Elf? Dragon? Yeah, I can imagine it’s some kinda elf horn. It’s got that… Elf-ish…. Look to it. Like it’s gonna slit your throat. Yeah. Hey, do they actually use their horns to attack? Be kinda silly if they didn’t…”

“ _IT’S A GOATS HORN!_ It’s from a goat! A normal goat! An uninspired, unintelligent goat! Maybe you were related!”

Viren felt the spell break with the finality of dropping a teacup, even as he whirled to shout the reply down the steps. The mirror thudded to the stone surface of the staircase, creaked ominously, and toppled onto Viren as slowly as it possibly could. With a shout of pain, rage, and embarrassment, he crashed to the floor, landing, once again, in a heap near Gren, who looked down at him passively.

“Well, that’s not very nice. I had a friend who looked like a goat.”

Viren lay very still and decided that, maybe, it might be better if the mirror stayed in the dungeon. For many, many reasons.

“Although he was actually a goat, so that may have been the issue. Or was it a sheep? A mix of both? A greep? A shoat? Hm. I’ll have to ask Amaya, she’ll know.”

Some battles, Viren reasoned, really were not worth the pain it took to fight them, whether it was physical pain or…

“Oh, no, I remember! He was a pig! They’re completely different…”

Emotional pain. Highly effective emotional pain.

**Author's Note:**

> I take requests and nonsense at my Twitter, @frankie_meeker and my tumblr @LittlestMedic. Go follow Dee, she deserves it.


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